This was my second explosion, but this one was close. Not from afar.
The volume and intensity left me rattled. The smack from the oven door felt like I’d been kneecapped, and across the boat the front doors were flapping open, the bolts snapped clean off.
Their face was total surprise.
I know they like their coffee to have a kick, but an internal explosion — that was extra.
As the ringing died in my ears, I caught a familiar smell — singed fur.
Still sat there, frozen, was Macy. Unflinching.
Her eyebrows and whiskers were gone, her facial fur burnt back and shortened.
She just looked at me.
No tail wag.
Just a blink — enough to show she was alive — and then a quick, frog-like lick of her top lip. In and out.
She still wanted the fucking treat.
Mutley was AWOL.
Who knew something as mundane as making a coffee could have that kind of impact.
The kettle was on the gas stove. The flame had gone out, but I hadn’t noticed. A trickle of propane had been leaking out, slowly filling the oven.
I reached over to grab a dog treat, saw the kettle wasn’t actually on, and hit the ignition to relight the ring.
That’s when it went.
Startled, and honestly lucky to be alive.
Macy got her treat and went to sit on the sofa, recomposing herself. The frog tongue became a thing that stuck. We still mimic it to each other — that quick flick — to mark absolute shock and disbelief. Along with her slow blink.
It became a living memory of her, even five years after she’d gone.
Mutley turned up wedged between the duvet and my pillow. In the face of something strange and dangerous, he always went back to his first safe place — my bed.
From that day on, whenever the kettle went on the stove, he was back there. Once burnt, and all that.
The gas valve was fucked. It should have cut off. It didn’t.
We got away with a shock.
But it changed how we built the boat after that.